Wow. I wasn't expecting the music on that website. It scared the crap out of me.

I also really enjoy restaurants that serve sustainably raised meats. Just curious, how is rabbit not sustainable?

Spacca Napoli, a thin crust pizza place made the list. It is really good, but I haven't been to Great Lake yet, so I can't compare.

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Spacca Napoli
1769 W Sunnyside Ave, Chicago, IL 60640

Great Lake
1477 W Balmoral Ave, Chicago, IL 60640

fontina, gorgonzola and parmesan was really nice

They have huitlacoche pizza on the menu at Pizza Nostrana in Oaxaca City, which is right by Santo Domingo. We tried it when we were there last spring and liked it. If I remember, the pizza had caramelized onions and green chile with the huitlacoche. Good luck.

I finished my PhD and were going out to celebrate tonight. I would go to Okan, but I went last week. I also went to Cucina Urbana fairly recently, so I probably won't go there. I'm thinking about Farmhouse Cafe or Alchemy maybe. Anyone have any good ideas?

I think you're referring to Big Star, not Blue Star as the taco place with great beer and drinks.

My pleasure. This was the first Moon Guidebook I've used and it could be that I would enjoy his recommendations for other parts of Oaxaca more.

Those sound like great recommendations. Hopefully I'll make it back sometime soon. I wish we would have had more time to try some of those places. The only time we made it to Mercado Merced was right when everything was closing down for the day unfortunately.

Great job. Congratulations!

I haven't heard anything on here about the rabbit at Aqui es Texcoco. How does it compare to the lamb?

I finally got to try the fish tacos at El Pescador and they were really great like everyone has been saying. To me, the main difference was the tortilla. It was much softer and seemed more homemade than the tortillas used at German. Has that been your experience?

I know you said you don't want to drive u to Escondido, but Lost Abbey/Port is also open on Sundays.

Wasn't he eating and cooking all the geoduck at Manzanilla. I also thought it was a pretty interesting show.

Yes that is correct. It may move again, but here are better directions. To get there from the center: walk north on Garcia Vigil, cross Ninos Heroes, walk up stone steps on left and go west on first street and about a block and a half up there is an entrance on the south side of the church courtyard .

This was the first real trip to Mexico for both my GF and I. We spent most of our time in Oaxaca City and went to a few of the surrounding villages.

Oaxaca City:
Itanoni – This was our first meal in Oaxaca and probably one of the favorites. We actually enjoyed it so much that we came back here a second time. It was an easy cab ride from near the zocalo, though I had to give the taxi driver the address because he hadn’t heard of it. I found this to be one of the best values of the trip as most items on the menu were between 10 and 20 pesos. Our favorite drink here was the limon con hierbabuena, which was amazingly refreshing. Over the two trips we tried several things on the menu including tacos, memelitas, tetelas, quesadillas and tamales. Nothing disappointed. My favorite was the chicharron taco. To my surprise the chicharron was crunchy, and overall the taco was really tasty. I’d recommend getting anything here filled with chicharron. You also can’t go wrong ordering any of the dishes filled/topped with mushrooms or beans here. The memelita clasica with refried beans was really good and so was the tetela de hongos. Also, while we ate quesadillas with flor de calabaza every single day, the one here was extra good. It may have something to do with their really good cheese.

Tlayuda/Quesadilla Stand at Bustamante and Mina – This stand was a pretty quick walk south of the zocalo. It was only open at night and was always busy. We enjoyed the tlayuda and the quesadilla with flor de calabaza.

El Alex – Decent spot for breakfast. Both chilaquiles and enfrijoladas were tasty. Though we had better versions of the same dishes for a lower price at other places.

Mercado Organico – We had a really hard time finding this market, but eventually we found someone who knew where it was located. I think it is in a new location because it wasn’t where our books said it would be. It is now north of the Periferico (Heroes) in the courtyard of a church. There were a few food stalls here, but the food was really good. One stall served really nice tostadas topped with different flavored cheeses and vegetables. I really enjoyed one topped with cilantro flavored cheese and greens. There were also a few stands making memelitas and we had some with potatoes and chicken.

Las Quince Letras – We came in the evening and it was deserted. We tried the mole negro and the estofada. Both dishes were tasty, but neither really blew us away. Given the price we wouldn’t return.

Empanada stand in Llano Park – Empanadas with mole Amarillo and mole verde. Both were filled with chicken, mole sauce and some greens. Both were interesting and unique compared to most of the street food we came across.

Mayordomo – My new favorite drink is called Manteada, which is a sort of chocolate milkshake.

Casa Elipidia – Small place for comida corrida several blocks south of the zocalo. 50 pesos, no options. We had good flor de calabaza quesadilla and decent flan but the main course of beef stew with green beans was dreadful.

La Biznaga – We came here for dinner twice. It was one of the few places where you could go after 7pm and not be the only ones in the restaurant. The food was great and actually priced reasonably compared to most other dinner menus in town. A big plus here was the large beer selection. Finally found something that wasn’t a light lager. They make really great soups here. The soup with mushrooms and bacon was amazing. The black bean soup was also really great. We tried two of their chicken moles and enjoyed both.

Cocina Economica Isabel – Great spot for breakfast near Llano Park. Great chilaquiles and enfrijoladas for a good price.

El Olivo – Cool bar with tiny rooftop patio. Very laid back. Good beer selection including some Belgians. We had an amazing (but tiny) huitlacoche empanada and amazing stuffed mushrooms for snacks.

Pizza Nostrana – right by Santo Domingo. After a few days we were ready for something other than Mexican food. But we ended up not being able to resist huitlacoche pizza. Unfortunately the flavor of the huitlacoche was dominated by caramelized onions The pizza and the brushcetta were both good. Tried the famous nochebuena beer that is released once a year.

Tlayuda/Memelita Stand at Fiallo and Guerro – Came here several times. On the side of a church, open during the day. Best memelitas of the trip and had most wide range of toppings. Enjoyed the papas con rajas, papas con chorizo, salpicon, mushrooms. This was our favorite stand for tlayudas and memelitsas on the trip.

I never expected how many stands would be selling burgers in Oaxaca City. Once it got dark, all of the ice cream carts left and were replaced with carts cooking hamburgers to order. After being there for several days my GF broke down and ordered one. I was impressed by the number of ingredients they managed to get on the bun. The burger consisted of: small slice burger, fried slice of ham, melted cheese, lettuce, pineapple, chiles, ketchup, mayo, mustard, fresh onion and cooked onion.

Teotitlan de Valle:
Tlamanalli – Made it here for lunch. Began with the complimentary guacamole with blue corn tortillas and the house mescal. We had the mole zapotec, which was chicken in a mild red sauce thickened with masa. Very good, the mole wasn’t spicy at all, but had subtle earthy flavors. We also had the sopa de calabaza with squash soup served with a small quesadilla de flor inside it. For dessert we like the zapote negro nieve better than the rose nieve. The women who worked here were really nice and we were glad we ate here. Not cheap, the most expensive meal of the trip.

Mitla: La Zapoteca – Our second try and comida corrida and really disappointing. Food was underwhelming and the portions were tiny.

Tlacolula – Came here for Sunday market. Lots of good food stalls.

Overall, besides Itanoni, the highlight for us was the street food. Most of the meals we ate in restaurants weren’t as tasty as what we had at the street stands.

While researching for the trip I read previous chowhound posts, other blogs (oneforkspoon) and several guide books including Moon, Rough Guide and a small book called Viva Oaxaca. The recommendations from here on chowhound were great. The recommendations from Rough Guide and Viva Oaxaca were also really useful and consistent with chowhound. The Moon Oaxaca book, however, is completely worthless. It only recommends restaurants that aren’t recommended by chowhounds, blogs or any other guide book. While this could have been great, if these places were hidden gems, it wasn’t. Whenever we tried recommendations from the Moon book, we were disappointed.

True. I'm most looking forward to Three Floyds. I really like their Gumballhead. Also there is a new small brewery in Chicago called Half Acre that is making some good beers.

Thanks. It's great to here that there will be such good Mexican food in Chicago. I'm looking forward to exploring Mexican restaurants there and I've started browsing that board a bit.

I'm actually also moving from SD to Chicago in a few months and I'm also looking forward to all of the restaurants there. I agree with the others that the food from the mariscos trucks will be hard to match. That is something I'll definitely miss. But the place I'll go to several times before leaving is Super Cocina. I'm sure there is great Mexican food in Chicago, (Though the places that get mentioned most often are high end and that is not really my thing) but I don't think I'll find a place just like it anywhere else. Over the last few years it has drastically changed my idea of what good Mexican food is.

Oh and I'll miss the super hoppy beers here in SD. I'll likely make several trips to Alpine Brewery to get growlers of their IPAs before I leave.

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Super Cocina
3627 University Ave., San Diego, CA 92104

For a restaurant with great beer offerings Hopleaf is a great choice. Really nice tap list with lots of belgians and good food. Especially the mussels.

I have not been but the Publican seems like it could be cool. They have a nice beer list and the food sounds really good. Maybe someone else can chime in about that.

http://hopleaf.com/
http://www.thepublicanrestaurant.com/

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Hopleaf Bar
5148 N Clark St, Chicago, IL 60640

The Mariscos German truck was sold several months ago. It is still at 35th and University and is still very good. In fact I liked it better than one of the trucks still owned by the company. They have an arrangement where they get to keep the MG name for 3 years or something and then they have to change it.

The places I eat at as often as I can are:
Super Cocina
Blind Lady Alehouse
Okan

And if it weren't for the calories: Lefty's Chicago pizza

I had to laugh about the rude girl there. I've experienced the same thing before. Once when they were a little busy the girl at the register actually tried to talk us out of ordering. She said that since the kitchen was behind we might just want to leave. I was amazed. We stayed and our food came a reasonable time later. The problem must be with the management allowing this to go on. My experience was probably a year ago.

I haven't been back in a long time, but I haven't totally sworn it off yet.

whoops. Olive tree already mentioned for alpine beers, didn't see that.

.

I also noticed the Fish Market was open. But what is the Smoking Goat?

Yeah Mission Hills. When they first opened the owner told me how they would eventually turn the outdoor area into a beer garden.

I'm glad to here you liked it. Lefty's is definitely one of my favorites.

Did you notice if they got their outdoor seating open yet?

I also tried this dish the other day. It was really good. My veggie GF was so excited they had it and I hope they continue to increase the meatless options.
Recently she also had them put the sauce from the pollo en cilantro on top of cheese enchiladas and it was out of this world.

And be ready to try some beers with him. When I was there last he started opening bottles and giving us samples.